The Daughter Who Was Supposed to Die Chapter 07

The Daughter Who Was Supposed to Die Chapter 07

My funeral was simple.

I was dressed in a pack’s traditional plain cloth robe, a pale pink Grandma had chosen for me.

A tiny moon motif was stitched along the collar.

It was the best, softest, most complete piece of new clothing I’d ever had in my life.

When Grandma fixed me up, her hands moved slow and gentle.

Mom tried to come closer to help, but Grandma threw her out while staring at her coldly,

“I told you, you don’t deserve to.”

Just those two sentences, but they hit so hard that Mom couldn’t say anything,

Dad knelt in front of the little wooden coffin, burning paper talismans for the rite, one after another.

The ash drifted up, settled in his hair, on his shoulders. He seemed numb, as if he couldn’t feel a thing, just repeating the same motion over and over.

Millie sat in the corner, hugging her knees. She didn’t say a single word all day.

She just stared blankly at me in the coffin. Her eyes were swollen that they were down to slits.

It rained cold on the day of the burial. A fine, needling drizzle that stung your face.

When the coffin was lowered into the pit, Mom suddenly lost control. She lunged, trying to jump in.

“Annie! Don’t go! I’ll go with you!”

A few from the pack yanked her back. But she thrashed and screamed with a wrecked and broken voice.

Nearby, Dad knelt by the grave and knocked his forehead to the ground until it bled. Blood mixed with rain and smeared across his face.

Meanwhile, I floated in the air, quietly watching all of it.

My eyes found Millie.

She stood in the rain, silent. No crying, no shouting. Just staring at the little mound of dirt as it slowly disappeared under the shovel.

And I saw it. Very clear.

The mark on her forehead, the one the elder left, the sign of a death prophecy-under the rain, it faded, bit by bit, and finally vanished completely.

I smiled, just a little.

Good.

My death wasn’t pointless.

At least she lived.

When the funeral ended, Grandma picked up my urn and turned to leave.

“Mother!”

Dad rushed up to block her.

“Where are you taking Annie?”

“I’ll bring ‘her’ back to the cabin in the woods.”

Grandma’s voice remained calm.

“No!”

Mom rushed forward and blocked the way.

“Annie is my daughter. I’m keeping her with me. I’ll stay with her. I’ll make it up to her!”

Grandma stopped and turned to look at her. Still, looking at her with a cold gaze and bitterness.

“Make it up to her?”

Sinished

She continued, sarcastically, “When she was alive, you didn’t feed her, didn’t clothe her, didn’t even give her a shred of love. Now she’s dead-what are you going to use to make that up?”

Then she snapped, “Sasha, Nick, remember this: you owe Annie for the rest of your lives. You’ll never pay it

back!”

She glared at both of them. “You don’t deserve to keep these ashes.”

Hearing those words, Mom collapsed in the rain, sobbing like her heart was being ripped out.

Dad dropped to his knees too, crying so hard he couldn’t even get the words out.

But Grandma didn’t look back. She held my urn and walked into the rain, one step at a time.

Grandma climbed into the carriage with my urn to head back to the cabin in the woods.

I floated beside her, watching the trees outside the window streak past.

I watched her aging profile, the deep lines in her face holding a grief that wouldn’t dissolve.

By the time we reached the old house, it was already dark.

Grandma lit a pine-oil lamp. Its dim, warm glow filled the tiny room.

She set my urn squarely on the table in the main room. After that, she straightened it, lit three sticks of incense, and slid them into the old incense burner.

Thin blue smoke curled up, looping softly in the lamplight.

Grandma kept standing there for a long time.

Then she slowly turned and looked toward where I was floating.

“Annic.”

Her voice was soft.

“I know you’re here.”